The Capital City of Unko

It had been about twelve hours since we crossed into the East Kingdom. We were just exiting a vast bamboo forest and were now crossing over a mountain pass.

For the majority of the trip, Erika was laser focused on figuring out the invisibility spell. Unfortunately, she wasn't any closer than when she started. Other than one incident where I had to stop her from jumping out of the cart and abducting a small panda cub, our trip was surprisingly quiet and peaceful. It was hard to believe several decades prior this same area was a warzone.

As we passed through the mountains, out in the distance below, we could see the East Kingdom's capital city, Unko.

"*BLEEP* That town is ginormous! I had no idea they even made them that big." Erika exclaimed.

"I told you before, you shouldn't use that word." I scolded.

"Sorry, I still don't know what it means, but it seems like a pretty versatile word to express different emotions."

"Nevermind that... And it's called a city not a town. In fact, Unko is the largest city in both population and size on this entire continent, possibly even the world." I explained.

Erika stared out towards Unko with an amazed look in her eyes.

"I don't understand why so many people would want to live in one place, wouldn't it be too crowded?"

"This city is the center of commerce and politics in this country. It's only logical people would conglomerate here."

Erika stared blankly at me.

"I have no idea what 'commerce' or 'politics' is, but I'm sure it's probably something important."

As usual, she was as naive to the world as ever.

Eventually we descended the mountain path and neared our destination. Unko was a circular shaped city that was entirely surrounded by a massive stone wall. The only way into the city was through one of four guarded entrances. Back during the war, the West Kingdom attempted to siege this city by scaling its walls... And I can say first hand it was a catastrophic failure that cost tens of thousands of lives.

The Cart came to a stop just outside the gates. This was where we got off.

"Get your stuff, girl." I said.

"I hope you haven't forgotten our deal from when we first met. You said you'd carry my bags." She responded.

She was unfortunately right. Having me be her pack mule was of course the one thing she wouldn't let slip her mind. At the very least her bag was a bit lighter this time around, since I was able to convince her to only bring the necessities for this trip.

I picked up her backpack as well as my satchel and the large sack of letters that we needed for our quest. As we approached the massive reinforced wooden doors to the city, we were approached by two guards.

The one shorter and kind of scrawny looking light brown haired guard spoke,

"Welcome to U-"

The other taller, slightly goofy looking black haired guard suddenly interrupted him and muttered,

"Bro, let me get this one."

"I guess if you really want to." The brown haired one responded, seeming a bit confused by his companions intentions.

The two of them looked to be in their late teens. They were wearing lighter weight dark red armor which consisted of a chest piece, wrist guards and shin guards, All of which were made of banded leather pieces. On their hips they were only equipped with a short wakizashi sword. Judging from their awkward demeanor, I was guessing they were new as guards.

"I see the two of you are Westerners. As a citizen of Unko, I humbly welcome you to our great city. My name is Ota Ryo and what might your names be?"

"My name is Erika and this is Mr. Arno. It's very nice to meet you Ri-yo."

She completely butchered the pronunciation of his name, but he didn't really seem to notice. I could already see where he was going with this because he was completely locked onto Erika.

"Huh, Erika, that's a very beautiful name. Is this your first time visiting? If you need someone to show you around the city I get off in a few ho-."

I cut him off bluntly,

"We're good. Our guild has already taken care of our arrangements."

The other brown haired one, quickly chimed in,

"I'm really sorry about my friend. You two can enter."

He nervously pulled open the massive gate. I could tell just by looking at him, he was a total push over.

"Darn, I didn't even get the chance to tell her about how much I could lift." Ryo whispered to him looking disappointed.

We entered through the gate into the city. Erika turned to me,

"Why did you rudely interrupt that guard, Mr. Arno?"

"He was obviously hitting on you. We don't have time for nonsense from people like that." I responded.

She looked confused.

"He seemed nice enough. It didn't look like he was trying to hit me."

She was completely oblivious. I was starting to feel like an overprotective father. It was bad enough that she was naive, but even worse was the fact that she was attractive.

"Nevermind, just keep in mind that we're in a foreign country, girl. Don't be too trusting of strangers." I said.

She nodded, only seeming to partially understand. At some point in the near future, I might have to give her the "stranger danger" talk.

As we entered the city, the first thing that caught my attention was the sheer number of people. Everything was crowded and the streets were packed all the way across. People flowed past each other like an ocean current.

"Stay near me, I don't need you getting lost." I said.

"You don't have to worry about me, Mr. Arno. I won't lea-... Woah, Look at that over there! That store sells tiny trees!"

Erika was suddenly distracted by a bonsai tree shop. She completely disregarded what I said about staying near me and proceeded to wander into the store. I followed after her.

"You don't need a bonsai tree." I said.

"I didn't say I wanted whatever a bonsy tree is. I want one of those little ones."

"That's what those trees are called and they're actually fairly high maintenance. You'll just end up killing it."

"Please, I always wanted a pet. I promise I'll take good care of it." Erika begged.

"I already said no. Let's get going. The guild made accommodations for us at an inn somewhere near the embassy. I want to find it and check in before it gets late."

"How about if I can get that invisibility spell down before we leave next week, I can buy a tree."

She refused to give up on the stupid tree.

I sighed,

"Fine if you can figure it out, I'll let you have a tree."

She had a huge smile on her face.

"I'll have that spell down in no time."

Who would have thought a bonsai tree was all it took to motivate her.

✨✨✨

After about an hour of Erika nonstop getting distracted by essentially every store, restaurant, and miscellaneous sight, we finally managed to make it to our inn located in the city's central district. As we approached the entrance, Erika pointed to a large wooden sign hung at the entrance of the traditional eastern style inn.

"Hmmm, I may not have the ABCs completely down yet, but I'm pretty sure I don't recognize any of those letters."

"That's because that's Eastanese. This country uses a different writing system than we do in the West Kingdom." I explained.

She shook her head.

"Great, how am I supposed to learn a second way of writing, when I can barely learn one?"

"There's actually four writing systems used on this continent. Just worry about getting Westish down for now. I happen to know all of them so we shouldn't have any issues on our travels."

It was starting to get late, so we entered the inn and checked into our rooms. Tomorrow morning we would begin tackling our quest.